Seven things to know about ISS’s Marikana massacre report

Mine workers during the commemoration rally of the third anniversary of the Marikana massacre on August 16, 2015 in Rustenburg, South Africa. Thirty-four miners were killed by police on 16 August 2012 during a violent wage increase protest.
Photo: Gallo Images / Beeld / Deaan Vivier.

More than two-thirds of the shots fired at Scene 2 were from R5 rifles.
According to the report of the independent forensic and ballistic experts,167 the firearms used at the scene, identified by ballistic matching to clusters of cartridge cases found, were:
a) ‘Fifteen R5 rifles: six from the south-eastern point firing towards the north-east, and seven from the eastern side firing towards the west, both immediately outside the actual koppie. Three rifles from the group of the eastern side also appear to have been fired from on top of the largest central boulder of the Koppie and firing towards the south-eastern direction, together with two other R5 rifles and a handgun’;
b) ‘One position from which a sub-machine gun was used: from the eastern position immediately outside the Koppie’; and
c) ‘At least five handguns with separate identified serial numbers were used.’ In addition, as indicated above a sixth handgun linked to cartridge cases AA28 and 29 appears also to have been used.

Striking mineworkers did not attack police at the small koppie, despite police testimony of protesters having shot at police.

There is no evidence that the strikers shot at the police in Scene 2.
“We cannot, however, exclude the possibility that they may have wanted to attack the police,” independent researcher and expert on Marikana and policing ISS independent researcher David Bruce said at the release of the report at the ISS’s headquarters in Pretoria on Wednesday.

The gunshots police believed were coming from striking workers, were likely “friendly fire” coming from other police teams approaching at different sides of the koppie.

Police at Scene 2 were acting in a reckless and irresponsible manner.
“Given that SAPS members were shooting into Scene 2 and not directing their gunfire at identified targets (i.e. people who were shooting at them), this was reckless in the extreme. Such gunfire would have beendirected towards Scene 2 irrespective of the fact that there were a large number of people gathered there who would be at risk of being hit by SAPS gunfire,” the report says.

Monday 13 August events where two police officers were killed by strikers, likely blurred the attitudes of the police towards the miners in the coming days.
“It has subsequently been established that police actions may have precipitated the clash. But it is likely that this is not how members of the SAPS at Marikana understood the event. According to Lt Col. Scott, the SAPS chief planner at Marikana, his understanding was that: this group of strikers had taken their level of willingness to achieve their goals to levels beyond what the police had previously experienced in labour and service delivery unrest.
“This had moved from destruction of property and harming of non-striking employees, to standing against the authority of state vested in the police, by attacking and murdering police officials when they tried to enforce the law,” according to the report.

17 strikers were killed at Koppie 3 (Scene 2).
Below is a list of the men who died at this point, where they were from and how old they were when they were shot and killed: